


i swallowed the iron moon

by oceansinmychest



Category: Wentworth (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Blood and Violence, Freakytits Mention, Joan Centric, Joan as Governor, Monsters, Murder, Not Canon Compliant, Purple Prose, Sorry Will, Transformation, Violence, Voyeurism, contradictions, werewolf joan au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:02:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25172050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oceansinmychest/pseuds/oceansinmychest
Summary: Struggling to hold it all together, restraint slips and breaks like a taut, snapped leash. She covets this dark blessing, this controlled curse. The wolf within now roams freely.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 9





	i swallowed the iron moon

**Author's Note:**

> This idea spawned from personal interests at the prospect of a werewolf au. The title stems from lyrics to Chelsea Wolfe’s “Iron Moon.”

> In bed awake with shadow beings  
> They crawl inside and wait with me  
> The creatures here become machines
> 
> _Iron Moon_ – Chelsea Wolfe

A devil to many dwells within the quaint comfort of her self-contained inferno. The violence of a stringed instrument serenades the room. Aleksandr Scriabin's “Symphony No. 1” serenades the vast expanse of Joan Ferguson’s loft. Swathed in a silken crimson house robe, she saunters across the waxed, immaculate floor while barefoot. Her mane flows over her shoulders, reminiscent to a still-shot of a motionless wave. Dark, glittering eyes contain a promise for the perfect storm.

Her watchful stare studies the starry sky barricaded by the glass of her window. The scenery would delight even the colorful imagination of Van Gogh, she muses. Hidden behind the thin veil of a cloud, the iron moon glows with promise.

At her marble kitchenette, Joan reaches for a crystal decanter holding aerated Shiraz. _Brokenwood._ Later in the evening, she’ll savor this full-bodied drink after she has her pound of flesh. She takes a sip of her wine. Rolls it across her tongue. Lets the warmth soothe her aching spirit.

The blunt tips of her filed, polished nails drum against the counter. With her feet pointed at right angles, her front knee faces forward as her elbows fall in line. Evenly balanced, her pose mirrors the en garde position. Through all this talk of crucibles and mandibles, her father – domineering Ivan Ferguson: the very embodiment of enforced patriarchy – taught her the value of control. As her eyes fall shut, she recalls the preserved memory of her indoctrinated youth which rests in her dining room. Disciplined to practice stoicism, she learned to guard her heart and to wear an iron mask.

In brooding darkness, Joan Ferguson stirs and nearly tears herself in two, her sense and sensibility are shaken. Her right cheek twitches. With her deficit exposed in corrections, a woman saddled by the stress of her career starts to unravel. Still, she perseveres as some proud paragon of control. 

The silken robe falls free from her body, dropping like the final curtain call to reveal her nude image. Clytemnestra steps upon the puddled fabric that slips and slides beneath her soles. No sense in tarnishing the Governor’s uniform.

With the rise of the full moon, the ritual begins. No longer does Ivan rule with his clenched fist. No longer does he correct her abominable behavior. Struggling to hold it all together, restraint slips and breaks like a taut, snapped leash. She covets this dark blessing, this controlled curse. The wolf within now roams freely.

A cellist’s precise fingers rake through her hair, pulling back strands from her face which now glistens from a slick sheen of sweat.

Witness one lonely woman’s decay.

Assuming control over her transformation, the sloped nose shifts into a snout, a muzzle full of sharp, glistening teeth. She yearns to sink her teeth into something promising. Her slender fingers warp into a pair of sharp claws that could eviscerate even the deadliest of foes.

Even her facial muscles slither and shift to welcome the transformation. Spurts of dark grey fur burst forth. Her eyes burn. Her back creaks when her spine curves. Pain, she finds, is an essential part of the human condition. You can sharpen pain to form a finely tuned weapon, perfect for inflicting punishment and retribution onto others.

For a time, fencing aided in discipline and self-control. She studied the blade to curb her unholy urges, to whet her insatiable appetite. 

Notice the plasticity of limbs. Addled by lycanthropy, the wear and tear of muscle and sinew combats the elasticity of her joints. Torn and stretched ligaments form a new wolfish image. She sinks onto all fours. A bent tail sweeps across the hallowed ground.

In an amalgamation between human and wolf, the elegant slope of her nose transforms into a snout. Her vicious set of sharpened teeth contrast the serenade of classical music. Muscles stretch to accompany the sadomasochistic tear and pull of sinew. Ever the strategic one, she’ll feel the excruciating burn tomorrow and fault it on a hearty fencing session.

Above the behavior of mere wolves, this master over her fate becomes one with the wilderness and this accursed affliction despite her aversion to silver and a preference for leather.

Overcome by the change, this heinous transformation does little to quell that wicked feeling. A war wages on in her mind, pitted against the order she has meticulously created. The inmates already view her as an anomaly. She guards this secret whilst implementing a refined strategy.

Without making a sound, she slips outside to immerse herself in a world swathed in cruel blue. Basks in the ethereal glow of the cool moonlight. A keening sound reverberates before making its escape from her lolled tongue. Running under the blanket of the tranquil night, she exudes the swift grace of a hunter. Tied and tethered to the doctrine of control, a killing machine experiences a burning hunger like no other.

Tempestuous, hurricane movement carries her aloft.

A reputable force in motion, her blood boils. Her hurricane movement attempts to conquer the hurdle of her desire. On her haunches, rising to her hindlegs, the full moon glows. She tastes the cool, night air, sweetened by cruel intentions. 

Oh, how she relishes the quiet evening, secure in her condition and free to commit such hazardous transgressions (in the cool light of day). She envisions the inmates cowering like frightened little rabbits. Few, only the bold, manage to stand up to her iron rule. To test her mettle. Had Spiteri remained within her gristly kingdom, the quivering woman would have made for the perfect prey.

The night chokes many, but for Joan, she is enshrouded, secure, and has never felt safer. Those luminescent rays bring her back like Lazarus. On the prowl, her prey won’t outsmart her. Although her mind ruminates, she has chosen her locations strategically.

For what an inmate had witnessed, Deputy Governor Ferguson nearly struck Jesus Kelly down. The sight to follow was too terrifying to translate into comprehensible words - all teeth and claw and fur like some, some, kind of bloody monster. She scritched and scratched at herself to eradicate the memory. When Kelly Bryant confessed, Matthew Fletcher laughed in her face before her transfer to Barnhurst.

Towards that oaf, Mr. Fletcher, she can hardly mask her contempt. Yet, Matthew Fletcher proves to be an unworthy adversary; his Neanderthal ways and days of drinking make him malleable, susceptible to bureaucratic error. She can ruin his reputation in a heartbeat.

Her sensible trot picks up the pace. Her tongue drags across the roof of her mouth, careful to avoid her slick, shiny fangs.

All finesse while exuding grace, she approaches Deputy Governor Vera Bennett’s home. Lingers for approximately five minutes. The wind sweeps away her forlorn howling upon peering into her kitchen window.

Distracted by the uncanny valley distorting her perception of reality, Vera swears that she spies two luminescent spheres outside. She shakes it off. Blames it on realistic nightmares. Pinches the bridge of her nose, closes her eyes, and when she opens them again, there’s nothing – no monster to greet her and pull her under the covers, under the bed, into the sea of overthinking. Consider this a happenstance for the harbinger effect.

In the unforgiving night, Vera remains convinced that she hears a low, eerie keen that sounds as lonely as she feels. She draws her blanket a little tighter around her boney shoulders as a makeshift cape, some poor attempt at a safeguard. She fights the urge to call, to text Joan (and it’s a privilege to refer to her by her sacred name). Instead, Vera falls asleep by the tele and dreams of comfort, dreams of being held.

Instinct lures Joan to her final destination in the midst of the eternal hunt. She creeps about the premise. From afar, she stalks and bides her time patiently. For months, she has stalked her vulnerable prey from her sleek, black vehicle to the woods on the brink of his property, she has been there to haunt his heroic conscience. 

Driven by instinct, her delicate waltz stems from sinister intent. She darts past the shed in the backyard which bears an awful resemblance to the hen’s coop of tales and fables galore. Her paws sink into the plush, soft ground beneath her. The rain will sweep away her muddy tracks. She’s supposed to be some thing of myths, after all.

In his kitchen, Officer Will Jackson prepares his meals for the week in between his fluctuating rota. He’s left the screen door ajar for a whiff of fresh air. The knife hits the chopping block. He splits a grilled chicken breast in two, the crude imagery resembling torn, frayed wings.

She appears like some sort of sinister apparition, her shadow painted as a mere aberration staining the wall.

An odd sense of apprehension washes over him. Cramps up his stomach and tenses his abdominal muscles. Logic doesn’t dictate Will’s reasoning; he pursues matters of the heart and so, the knife collapses onto the board.

“What the fuck-?!”

The rhetorical question falls flat. His eyes widen from shock, confusion, as he takes a step back.

That scent of his fills her with pure, unbridled rage. In an aggressive display, wolfish ears peel back and flatten against her skull. Her nose wrinkles as the corners to her mouth pull back. 

He looks at her – takes a moment to _actually_ look at her – and connect with that vantablack stare. He knows it, knows her from Wentworth, from Blackmoor, from the guilt that haunts his dreams. On the defense, Will raises his forearm and steps away from the gristly beast, closer to the counters and cabinets rather than the hallway.

“It’s you,” he accuses in between his pitiful spluttering and gasps for air while he panics.

With an impetuous snort, she licks her chops. Conducting herself with a vicious ruthlessness to sate the incredible urge, she injects vengeance’s destructive venom. Propelled by the tenacity of her hind legs, she lunges. Pointed teeth needle Will’s skin and break through the first layer. She grips his forearm with the tenacity that only the jaws of life possess.

Will tries his best to fight the Devil off and kick her away. He’s a flurry of flailing limbs and failed defense maneuvers. A fist collided with her snout which causes her to whimper and shake her lupine head. Narrowly, he misses her eye. Leaves a bruise to be hidden beneath designer shades. He hears a crack that he first feels disconnected from, chalked up to adrenaline pumping through his veins. He gasps, clutching his ribs with fright in his eyes. Blood spills through. His calloused fingers connect with flayed muscle, torn up skin, and a nasty sliver of bone. A wheezing sensation reverberates from deep within his chest. Reaping the victor’s spoils, his fear tastes finer than any glass of vintage wine. 

“Fuck,” he spits out. Saliva stained crimson, turned pink, connects with her chest. “You’re a _monster_ , Ferguson.”

Although it causes a twinge on her behalf, she maintains her arrogant façade. Those words belong to a dead man now. She refuses to let his epitaph mingle with her father’s disappointment.

She bears witness to a liquefied red curtain so deep it appears black staining his once white singlet. A voracious appetite squanders her dire need for control. Practiced, orchestrated restraint falls away. Impulse takes hold akin to the spread of a fever. Insatiable bloodlust tempts and goads her to commit these terrible yet godly acts. It takes her back to the folly of her youth.

Ivan the Terrible taught her how to kill, how to curb this unholy appetite, how to dispose of the evidence, and how to wear a stoic mask. Still, Joan has a penchant for toying with her prey.

Will Jackson secretes a foul stench. Perhaps he’s gone and pissed himself. The damp spot blotting his crotch indicates such. Collapsed in a broken heap, he resists death’s chill and hopes to survive for one more tomorrow, but the day won’t come. He can’t see very well – just a blob of fur and teeth that could send him spiraling into Lovecraftian despair. She never pinned him for the weeping sort. 

Surrounded by carnage, morality falls apart. Reveling in the great slaughter, she slices flesh to ribbons and reduces skin to a bloody pulp. Depravity beckons for animalistic urges to be fulfilled, to cater to those primal instincts. Her mechanical jaws get to work. She chews and she chews, but she doesn’t swallow. Viscera stains her muzzle, rivulets and strings dripping from her bared fangs. Downright ravenous, the taste of copper saturates the bed of her tongue. Salacious hunger curdles her belly. Hollows it out. 

In a grand Old Testament act of wrath, she executes Will Jackson. Rips out his throat. Viscera dripping from her claws, victory remains bittersweet. His blood, while molten hot, manages to taste rancid. She spits it out. Dry heaves and just about retches onto his ransacked, jigsaw body. Restricted humanity deems the act too messy, too unsanitary. Sublime horror manifests.

She slithers backwards, as if time can reverse itself. Joan leaves the way she came: silently, violently.

Reveling in the slaughter, she can bury this. She _will_ bury this. It’s best to make this look like an accident. A tragedy to celebrate the fallen, but Joan Ferguson will know the truth and revel in it.

Upon returning to her devil’s den, Ferguson makes for the arrangement to have Nils Jesper take care of the rest.

Through thick and thin, Nils has proven to be a reliable alibi.

Molten heat surges through her body, her blood sings, her innards gooey and warm upon indulging in the memory of the kill. A tiny shudder of delight, barely noticeable to the untrained eye, akin to the slight flare of her nostrils when plans go awry, rakes through her.

In the privacy of his home, the act is more personal, more intimate, and far more profound than petty means of revenge. With his body never to be found, a hiking incident gone awry, a car crash, a home invasion are all viable outcomes. Ultimately, the police rule his death out as a freak accident, a bizarre case diminished to the state of an unsolved mystery. A freak accident makes the headlines.

Once at home, her bones remold themselves. The fur shrinks and fades, the joints less elastic, the skin stained by carnage. Human again, she flexes her fists. Still nude, she ascends her stairs two at a time. She’ll wash away all traces of congealed and crusted blood. She’ll blot at her lips prettily with a napkin and appear at the correctional facility, unfazed by the tragic incident flashing across all news stations.

Stepping into her washroom which rivals a contemporary designer’s fantasy, Joan fixes herself a bath. Slips into the boiling heat to relish such devilish warmth. Her robe hangs limply on a hook as her damp fingertips trail across dried, crusted splatter. She scrubs and she scrubs, her pale body illuminated by the warm, flickering candlelight rather than fluorescent, unforgiving cruelty. Under the waning moonlight, she bathes away all viscera and matter.

Languidly, she reclines. She relaxes in her self-made baptism.

Come the end of tomorrow’s shift, she intends to feign grief, to appear at her Deputy’s home with a consolatory bottle of wine.

After three days have passed, she invites Vera over for drinks to discuss Will Jackson’s demise and revel in newly found glory. Being Governor allows Joan Ferguson the affordance of avoiding certain consequences. Consider this a conquest.

She still wears the wolf’s grin, slight yet somber.

**Author's Note:**

> I might create a second chapter that entails freakytits sans murder and violence, but I’m not entirely sure.
> 
> Furthermore, here’s the link to Scriabin’s symphony that I had been listening to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUA_A-KwXU8


End file.
